


Figure Drawing

by hellwurm



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M, figure drawing... AU?, they're not demigods is what i mean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 07:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1736711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellwurm/pseuds/hellwurm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico tags along with Hazel to her weekly figure drawing class. Jason is one of the models.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Figure Drawing

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys. I somehow managed to read all the Jasico fanfics on AO3 so out of desperation I tried writing one. Except I haven't written fanfic in... a long time. (10 years?? I dont' want to think about it)
> 
> So I hope you enjoy! Sorry for any errors or mischaracterization.

There were only a limited number of times Nico could say ‘No’ to Hazel, so when she stood in his doorway on Thursday afternoon and begged him to accompany her to one of her weekly figure drawing sessions, Nico knew he was doomed. He had already rejected her four previous attempts to get him out of the house, and that was usually as far as his guilty conscience would allow. For someone who always tried to assume an unapproachable personality complete with skull-adorned shirts and constant gloomy expression, he was still a complete prude, especially around his half-sister.

He bit his lip and glared at the corner of the room, wishing he could go back in time and say ‘Yes’ to strawberry picking from two weeks ago. Or even karaoke from last week. “It’s… embarrassing,” he managed, sounding a lot smaller than he would have liked.

Hazel smiled brightly. She could tell she was going to win this one. “It’s art, Nico. I know you like drawing. You used to draw all that Mythomagic fanart.”

Nico’s stomach sank even futher. “You found those?”

“Don’t look like that – they’re good! We have to leave in ten minutes. Come on, Nico. It’s good for you to do something like this every once in a while.”

He sighed in defeat.

\---

The bus ride there was filled with hushed assurances from Hazel, which only made Nico grip the strap of his backpack tighter in anticipation. It had been a while since he had gone out. He preferred to shut himself in and avoid the rest of the world as much as the rest of the world wanted to avoid him. Some of the nearby passengers kept darting their eyes towards them with bemused smiles on their faces. Hazel was perhaps trying a little too hard to convince him that ‘nudity isn’t vulgar if it’s artful’ and ‘you’ll get used to it right away’. He gave her a pained smile and hushed her.

“I’m fine, just a little nervous,” he said. She realized she had been speaking louder than she had intended and clamped her hand over her mouth in surprise. Nico smiled and fondly tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

When they finally reached the studio, the models hadn’t arrived yet, so everyone was just milling about and talking. Hazel greeted her friend Frank, who turned slightly pink and mumbled back a garbled response. Nico paused from rummaging in his backpack and turned his head sharply to stare at Frank. The burly boy noticed immediately and actually jumped backwards an inch or two in fright. The reaction was so unexpected that Nico had to look away and bite his lip to prevent the smile that was threatening to break out on his face.

He heard the door open and a few welcoming phrases uttered. From his low position crouched over his backpack, he could only see that the two pairs of feet that had just entered the far side of the room were barefoot. They belonged to a man and a woman.

“Nico, the models are here,” Hazel said, gently nudging him with her foot. He stood up reluctantly and sat on his stool next to hers. When he turned to take his first good look at his drawing subjects, he froze.

They were both ridiculously good looking. He turned to Hazel with a slightly horrified expression on his face.

“What’s wrong? They’re still wearing their bathrobes,” she whispered.

“You told me it’s always overweight old people!” he hissed back with a look of panic.

She looked apologetic. “It looks like their first time modeling. Besides, isn’t it better this way? You get the rare chance to practice muscles.”

Before he could answer, someone made an announcement introducing the models. Their names were Jason Grace and Piper McLean, and they were local university students who were invited to be models for this class by their friend. And that’s all Nico could process because both of them suddenly discarded their robes and were walking to the center of the setup. Piper had short chocolate brown hair and a great figure. He kept his eyes on her face while mentally chanting ‘for art’ in his head. When he finally gathered the courage to look at the rest of her body, he could only look for about half a second before turning away with his cheeks tinged slightly pink. He could hear Hazel’s muffled giggling at him from beside him and busied himself with smoothing out a side of the charcoal to let the feeling of embarrassment pass.

A few minutes later, he chanced a peek at Jason. This was a little easier, since the idea of shirtless guys was way more familiar to him. He just had to avoid looking at anything below the waist. Jason was classically handsome, with short cropped blond hair and blue eyes. His shoulders were broad and Hazel was right – this was perfect if you wanted an opportunity to practice drawing muscles. The only slight imperfection was a small scar on his lips, though to Nico it seemed to make him even more attractive. He watched as it stretched slightly while Jason talked and smiled.

He was shocked out of his thoughts when he realized that Jason was talking and smiling at him. He suddenly could hear the sound of his heartbeat through the blood in his ears. His face flushed warm and he stammered, “Sorry, what?”

“Can you help me plug the heater in? There’s an outlet by your foot.” Jason repeated, holding the cord out. Nico grabbed the cord without a word and acquiesced to the request, thankful for the excuse to duck under the table. He stayed there for a second or two longer than he needed to pull himself together. After closing his eyes and breathing in and out to clear the warmth from his head, he reappeared from below the table and guardedly avoided Jason’s gaze.

“It should work now,” he said at his paper.

“Thanks.” He could hear the smile in his voice.

Nico tried not to stare at Jason’s ass as he walked back to turn on the heater, but it was hard. He groaned and buried his face in his arms. These next two hours were going to go painfully slowly.

\--- 

Hazel was right. Once he started drawing, he felt a lot better about his predicament. It had been a while since he had drawn anything, but he found himself enjoying it again. After the first two 10-minute posing sessions, he found that he didn’t feel too awkward anymore examining the curves and dips of Piper’s body. Everyone else around him was doing the same, and he felt slightly ashamed that he had made such a big deal out of it in the first place.

For the third 10-minute session, however, Piper and Jason switched places. Nico silently ground his teeth as he summoned the will to keep calm. He couldn’t let anyone else notice how nervous Jason made him. Nervous probably wasn’t the right word, but he also didn’t want to put much thought into it either. He spent the next twenty minutes stubbornly sketching and rendering with as much concentration as he could muster, quelling all other thoughts about how nice Jason’s everything was to the back of his mind. At the end of the twenty minutes, he had gotten so absorbed into rendering the image that he didn’t realize he had put an inordinate amount of detail into his last drawing. It was in stark contrast to the rest of the pictures, and he hastily hid it to the last of the pile.

The models were given a ten minute break where, to Nico’s relief, they wrapped themselves into their bathrobes again and began chatting with some of the artists. _Don’t come here, don’t come here, don’t come here…_ Jason made a beeline for Nico, who was once again doing his best not to look at him. He cursed mentally at the gorgeous guy who for some reason would not leave him alone.

A hand extended in front of him. Nico looked down at it, and reluctantly followed it back to an arm, a shoulder, and finally Jason’s face. After a lengthy pause, he realized Jason was expecting a handshake, but the hand was retracted before he could do anything. Jason looked a little embarrassed, and Nico cursed himself inwardly for being slow, even though he hadn’t wanted to accept the handshake anyway.

“I’m Jason. What’s your name?” he asked as if that hadn’t just happened.

Nico looked at Jason cautiously. He could tell he was the friendly type, but there were plenty of other people in this room who probably looked like way better conversation partners than him. It was weird that he was being so persistent. “I’m Nico.”

“Can I see your drawings?” Jason asked. He looked really eager. 

Nico tried not to let his surprise show. “Oh, sure,” he said, and pushed the pile of papers towards him. Jason thanked him, explaining that it was his first time doing something like this so he was really curious what the sketches would look like.

It was extremely nerve-wracking to watch Jason go through each sheet one by one. Nico tried not to fidget. But when Jason looked back up to comment on one of the pieces, a big smile broke out on his face.

“You have some charcoal,” he gestured. He ripped off a piece of paper towel and offered it. “Right there.”

Nico took it, beginning to feel his face become warm again. “Here?”

“No, other side.”

Nico dabbed at that spot furiously.

“Go a bit lower. Here, I’ll do it.” Jason took the paper towel back from him and leaned over the table. He brought a hand up to Nico’s chin to steady his face.

As Jason’s fingers brushed against his skin, Nico flinched back automatically. He never liked it when people touched him. Even though it was just for a second, he could still feel the slight warmth of Jason’s touch, which made his heartbeat quicken drastically. He slapped his hand over the area to quell the feeling.

Jason apologized hastily, “Sorry. Sorry, I shouldn’t have—“

“It’s okay,” Nico said, blushing heavily. “Sorry, I should go clean this off in the bathroom.”

Before Jason could say another word, he hurried away and out the door of the studio room. In the hallway, he ran into Hazel who was just coming back from the girl’s restroom. He hurriedly made up an excuse to go home. Hazel could tell instantly that something was wrong, so without asking many questions, she brought out his backpack for him. He quietly thanked her and left for home.

When he finally got back to his room, he headed immediately for the bathroom sink. Sure enough, there was a large smudge of charcoal decorating his lower left cheek, near his lip. He scrubbed at it with water. Even though the charcoal went away fairly quickly, he could still recall the phantom feeling of Jason’s fingertips on his chin.

He threw himself onto his bed and groaned.


End file.
